S.J. waterways have a new enforcer

STOCKTON - The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office received the newest addition to its fleet of boats patrolling the Delta just in time for the Fourth of July holiday.

Zachary K. Johnson

STOCKTON - The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office received the newest addition to its fleet of boats patrolling the Delta just in time for the Fourth of July holiday.

The 38-foot boat is bigger than anything else in the Sheriff's Office navy - big enough to act as a floating command center to respond to any major incident that might occur as any revelers descend on the Delta for the holiday or any other time in the future.

The Sheriff's Office realm includes some 550 miles of waterways, and just the size of the new boat makes it easier to bring sworn officers and medics out to incidents in the county's backwaters.

"It extends our reach into the Delta," Sheriff Steve Moore said.

There's room enough for a SWAT team or off-road quads, and a gate that drops forward from the bow so the deputies can storm Delta island beaches as if they're at Normandy.

Speed can make a difference, Moore said. "If you're going to have a large disturbance on an island - it's critical."

Paid for, in part, with a $543,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to keep the Port of Stockton safe, the boat costs about $615,000. Gear to detect radiation, chemicals and explosives put initial cost estimates above $700,000, but the accessory gear is portable. It also has sonar to help locate explosive devices under the surface in the port or the Deep Water Channel, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Not portable are the three water cannons that can pump about 2,500 gallons of water per minute to fight fires - this is something the agency didn't have before.

And those pumps can be used to remove water from boats in danger of foundering, boating safety unit Sgt. Carey Pehl said. And the new boat is large and stable enough to tow distressed vessels that would be too large for the rest of the unit's five boats, which are all 23 feet long, he said.

"This is highly customized for the county," he said, and it has flexibility. "Once you get a platform of this size, there's a lot of different things we can do with it."

The boat's speed tops out around 40 miles per hour, which is not quite as fast as the agency's smaller boats, Pehl said. But the new boat has better communication equipment that allows improved coordination with other agencies in the region with boats in the water, such as the Coast Guard.

The new boat was first put into service during last weekend's Bump Music Festival at Weber Point, but more people will need training before it becomes part of the regular rotation, officials said.

"We believe it will be a great asset to the Delta and the county," Moore said. "We're very happy to have it."